That's O'Reilly from Drung!

Frank drove his wife mad, when on holidays and he saw someone he thought he knew.

She knew he was mistaken, but off he'd race.

“Just a minute, while I say hello.”

Over he would go to a complete stranger and strike up a conversation. It never mattered to him that it soon became obvious that they were not acquainted. A foreign language response usually revealed that.

But still he persisted in “recognising” strangers and approaching them.

Sometimes they walked away, but sometimes he seemed to trap them and proceeded to engage in one-sided conversation.

“I mind the time at the fair when your brother Joe bought the calf that the brother, mine that is, fancied. Boys oh boys: there was some language in the car on the way home. Truth is, however that the calf was better off on the rich grass of Meath, that the whin fields of Cavan”

Then he would return to Mary, his wife, with a smile and a comment “Terrible jokers them O'Sullivans. Cat men!”

Over years he persisted, no matter where they were, he would see familiar faces from familiar places.

Finally the family came together and banned him from approaching strangers. He would still recognise strangers but was prevented from approaching them.

“You know the rules, the girls have told you, more of those auld ideas and it's away they will put you – the nursing home.”

Frank was miserable, but over the years he accepted the facts. He was mad, he knew, to be at that crack all those years. How people he accosted must have laughed at him later, when they told the tale of the Mad Irishman.

Eventually, at years passed he just wore out, the well tuned walking engine, the mind that had been curious dimmed, and eventually he just died. One day he just shut his eyes, his breathing stopped, and they found him in the chair in front of the television. He looked content. In fact he seemed to be smiling in death.

He was dead, he knew that, the pains were gone, the fog in his head had cleared. Truly dead – that's it. Here in this bright grass-filled field, buttercups dancing in a slight wind. A warm wind. Jeepers warm? Hope this is not the place below!

A path led away towards a hill. There was a big wall up there, and gates – the Pearly Gates?

A man was walking towards him down the hill, on the path. A large crowd of men and women followed slowly.

Frank looked at the man. That's O'Reilly! From Drung. But it can't be he was just imaging things again. The man was smiling and offered an out-stretched hand, as he now hurried up to him.

“Frank. Don't you know me? O'Reilly – from Drung. They have been waiting for you.”

“Who?”

“All of them. The ones you saved.”

“Saved?”

“When you came up and talked to them when they were down. Suicidal, some of them, and you went up to them and started talking. They did not understand you, but that big sun blotched, ruddy face, and that smile, and the hands waving, enraptured them and took their minds off their troubles. Some laughed afterwards, not knowing why they did. Relieved maybe. They went back to their lives – the one you saved for them. Eventually like all of us, the years caught up on us. They are here now to welcome you.”

“To Heaven?”

“To our paradise. The Man inside wants you come in and talk with him.”

“Will I know him? Will I be able to talk to him?”

“Frank, you have been recognising him all your life, and you have been talking to him, sometimes even for him, all your life.”